Hunger
by Regina Halliwell
Summary: Hayley and Elijah's thoughts as she drinks from him, and they both crave more. (Inspired by the deleted finale scene in which Hayley feeds from Elijah.)


The hunger had nearly abated, but something else awakened within Hayley. The blood coursing from Elijah's veins into her desperate mouth as she bawled was overwhelming. The loss of her daughter, the sadness she felt, the pain of her own death still in her mind, Hayley now also recognized the desire she had felt for Elijah since practically their first meeting.

They had always had a strong mental connection, she and the eldest Original, and whether intentional or not, this was an occasion on which their minds linked. She saw in his head the pain of losing her, the anguish of a dead almost-lover, a lost niece, the destruction of his hope for a better life. Whatever her own terrors, Elijah had many of his own. Many that involved her, fearing her demise or her rejection. Fearing himself.

Similarly, as Hayley imbibed the immortal's lifeblood, she took him into herself, into her very soul. The depth of her feeling for… well, everything, was shocking. He had forgotten what it felt like to be human, and this heightening of emotion for her was a ride for him as well. Never before had she felt so much loss, or rage, or hunger, or lust. Never before had she been consumed by this need to kill, to feed, to satisfy her most primal urges.

He heard more than felt the sorrow of feeding on him in her muffled (by his now bloodstained shirt and jacket) cries as she pulled the blood from his veins. He had offered himself to her completely, had known what it was to do such a thing and had not questioned her worthiness. She may not know the intricacies of vampire etiquette, but he did. He had created them. And he did not need to be told that this was an important moment, a moment in which Hayley was so completely vulnerable and open, that she was most herself and also someone—something—wholly new and different. It was beautiful and tragic.

Her words about starting the day as a wolf and a mother certainly still applied, even if she would not know her daughter, even if she were reviled by her wolf-kind as an abomination, a _thing _to be feared. Even if this changed her, she would still be a wolf. She would still be the mother to Hope, the bringer of salvation to the family. She would still be his Hayley, beloved and cherished and, once she might allow him, worshipped.

But now all this desire turned to ash, her mouth consuming the blood that had never once called out to her as it had so many others, her body refusing to awaken in lust (blood or otherwise). All that plagued her thoughts was her daughter, the center of her world, her reason for being, her purpose.

Elijah had once told her that she would always have a choice. And she did, now, but the choices that lay before her meant little without her daughter. Live on, perhaps never to see the little girl she died bringing into the world. Fade away, and give up on a chance at happiness, with Hope or Elijah or anyone. These were not choices. In front of her there were realities.

She admired Elijah's enforcement of her agency and were she not completely heartbroken, she might in this moment feel more alive than ever before. But a part of her was dead inside. When her throat was slit holding her newborn in her arms, Hayley lost a piece that had once made her whole. It didn't matter that she had been brought back, that they had saved her daughter. She was not the same Hayley she had been before. Elijah couldn't protect her then, and she had become something she feared.

Elijah gently stroked her back as he held her to his neck, feeling her tears—or maybe it was his own blood, or then perhaps both—dampening the hair behind his ear. She had long since stopped drinking, but held her mouth to the wound with a kind of child-like wonder. With astonishing reverence and calmness, he lowered them both down to the ground. He could feel her lapping lightly at his neck, more like a wolf than a vampire, stopping, then nuzzling her nose into his hair. When he ran his fingers through her hair to calm her, to support her, to show that she had done well, she turned into his embrace, curling into a ball in his arms and lap. She hid her face in his chest, grasping at him desperately with her hands as though he could fix every wrong in the world.

And oh, how he wished he could. Fix it all for Hayley, make her happy again. She likely saw her new self as a shadow of Klaus. She remembered what happened with Tyler, she knew the joy and pain and burden of being a hybrid. And Hayley had lost so much along the way.

One day, when she was healed (emotional scars take much longer to heal than physical ones, even especially for vampires) he would try to show her how beautiful she was to him, how much he craved her in the way right now all she craved was to staunch her hunger with his blood. If he could do even that for her, he would be happy.

And maybe some day, so would she.


End file.
